Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Security

Submission + - Blackberry password blacklist targets 'Pooh' gang (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A blacklist of 106 names and words that are prohibited from being used as your BlackBerry ID is receiving attention this week for a couple of reasons. First, it was reported that the list would be applied for the first time in the upcoming BlackBerry OS 10, which isn’t true; it’s been around “for some time,” according to RIM. What is true is that the list is dominated by characters from the children’s classic “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Five of them in all, even Eeyore."
Cloud

Submission + - OpenStack - Why democracy beats dictatorship in the cloud (techworld.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: It is two and a half years since Rackspace and NASA launched the OpenStack infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud computing project, and since then the community has grown from 20 developers and 15,000 lines of software to 600 developers and 600,000 lines of software.

One might think that having so many developers working on one project would be a recipe for chaos, but when Techworld met up with OpenStack Foundation executive director Jonathan Bryce and COO Mark Collier in London this week, they insisted that democracy in the cloud is better than dictatorship.

“Dictatorships are almost always better for the dictator, and almost never better for anyone else. In a democracy, the people have a lot of power and they tend to be happier and it leads to a better society – it's a better model for the users,” said Collier...

According to Bryce: “At a very basic level there's a division between technical decisions and non-technical decisions. Technical decisions are driven by the development community – by the people who are contributing to the software. The software's broken up into specific projects and teams, and each of those teams has a leader who gets to make hard decisions.”
Open Source

Submission + - Left to fail? How open source was driven out of Freiburg (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: We recently saw the news that the German city of Freiburg had decided to end its open source migration and instead switch to using Microsoft products again. The rationale provided seemed curious to me — after all, at the same time the German city of Munich announced total savings amounting to €10 million from its own successful and ongoing migration.

What seemed odd was there was no account of how they changed course to make the migration succeed. Munich learned lessons from early challenges and updated its strategy in order to succeed. But not Freiburg.

My (guided) reading shows three points of concern in the situation over the last four years. First, the only ongoing expenditure in support of the migration is running costs of less than €15 per seat per annum, all associated with licensing supposedly superceded proprietary software. Second, substantial one-off costs of around €231/seat associated with interoperability — a topic that is always an indicator that proprietary software is controlling people’s thinking. Third, no obvious investment in ongoing community engagement or equivalent commercial subscriptions for open source.

  It seems Freiburg has not invested in its open source solution in any way likely to make it succeed, but has rather left it to fail “to save money” and then when it has, blamed the open source software instead of the flawed strategy. The structure of the report makes this look a conscious frame.

Comment Saudi objections (Score 1) 3

by Qedward (#42065897) Attached to: World Governments Object to New gTLDs like .wtf, .sucks, .baby, .amazon

I compiled a list in August for all of Saudi Arabia's objections. Begins with .tattoo which is "contrary to the culture, morality and religion of Islam and Judaism. The creation of a gTLD string which promotes tattooing will be offensive to these societies and cultures, representing billions of people worldwide."

Moves on to: .sucks .wine .style .bar .wtf .vodka .virgin .sexy .sex .pub .porn .poker .hot .dating .gay .casino .bar .baby .africamagic .adult .ummah .tatar .shia .ismaili .islam .imamat .halal .catholic .bible .persiangulf .gcc

There may be more, that anecdotal investigation was done on August 16.
Piracy

Submission + - Police raid home of 9-year-old Pirate Bay user, seize 'Winnie the Pooh' laptop (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Copyright enforcement might be getting out of hand in Scandinavia. As anti-piracy groups and copyright owners continue to work with authorities to curtail piracy in the region, police this week raided the home of a 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her “Winnie the Pooh” laptop. TorrentFreak reports that the girl’s home was raided after local anti-piracy group CIAPC determined copyrighted files had been downloaded illegally at her residence. Her father, the Internet service account holder, was contacted by CIAPC, which demanded that he pay a 600 euro fine and sign a non-disclosure agreement to settle the matter. When the man did not comply, authorities raided his home and collected evidence, including his 9-year-old daughter’s notebook computer...
Open Source

Submission + - OpenOffice dumped as German city plots return to Microsoft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The German city of Freiburg is preparing to dump its long-running use of the OpenOffice suite in favor of a return to Microsoft's Office after struggling with range of document compatibility problems. A draft resolution was put forward by council officials on Friday, and due to be put to the voted on today, recommended that the Council adopt Microsoft Office 2010 in favor of the open source suite for its 2,500 PCs. Key issues appear to have been long-running grumbles over the document compatibility of the different elements of OpenOffice — the rival Microsoft Office suite is far more common in German state and national governments — especially the presentation programs and spreadsheet. OpenOffice Writer had been less of a problem but the Council needed an entire suite, not simply one component.

Submission + - New UK mobile operator donates 10% of your bill and 25% of profits to charity (techworld.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: A new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has launched in the UK that allows customers to donate a portion of their phone bill to an organisation or charity of their choice.

The People's Operator (TPO) operates in the same way as any other mobile network, offering a variety of call, text and data packages. However, 10% of customers' call, text and data spend will be directed to a good cause.

TPO claims that the service gives customers the opportunity to support their favourite causes and receive updates on how their money is being spent, while businesses can fulfil their corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments.

The company will also donate 25 percent of its own profits to charities, community groups and other good causes, such as the NSPCC, the Trussell Trust, ChildLine, Islington Giving, Regenerate, and Claxton House.
Open Source

Submission + - German council ditching OpenOffice to go back to Microsoft (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: The city council in Freiburg, Germany, is planning to ditch open source office suite OpenOffice and return to Microsoft Office.

But at the end of last week, German open source developers reacted angrily, saying that the city uses outdated software and did not consider upgrading to a current version of LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org.

In a draft resolution discussing IT problems, Freiburg's city council said it was in favour of migrating from the outdated OpenOffice 3.2.1 it is using in combination with Microsoft Office 2000 to Microsoft Office 2010.

"In the specific case of the use of OpenOffice, the hopes and expectations of the year 2007 are not fulfilled," the council wrote, adding that continuing use OpenOffice will lead to performance impairments and aggravation and frustration on the part of employees and external parties.

"Therefore, a new Microsoft Office licence is essential for effective operations," they said.
Google

Submission + - Google's server cooling plan produces 4-ft-alligator (postandcourier.com)

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "In addition to potentially keeping Google’s search and email programs from overheating, the pond also has become home to plenty of algae, which meant Google had to stock it with fish. And since this is the Lowcountry, the food chain didn’t stop there.

“So we now have a 4-foot alligator that has taken up residence in our pond as well,” Kava said, clearly amused. He added that government experts have said it’ll have to be removed once it grows to six feet long."

Submission + - Former UK mining town hoping to crowdfund free WiFi service (techworld.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: Mansfield in Nottinghamshire could become the first UK town to crowdfund its own free Wi-Fi service.

The former mining town’s business improvement district (BID) hopes to use crowdfunding to create a Wi-Fi hotspot that spans its entire town centre.

Using Spacehive.com, a web platform devoted to civic improvement, BID hopes to persuade local businesses to crowdfund £38,000 for the digital overhaul.

This money will allow Mansfield District Council to install free Wi-Fi transmitters on lamp posts across the town. Public spaces will also be adorned with QR codes, providing information on the latest shopping, offers, events and attractions, when scanned using a smartphone.

Sarah Nelson, manager of Mansfield BID, added that embracing the internet could help drive up footfall and encourage more growth in local enterprise. This is in line with the government's aim to improve digital inclusion throughout the UK.

Mansfield has until 1 May 2013 to meet its target of £38,000. If the target is not met by that time, no money will exchange hands. At the time of writing, a total of £5,501 had been pledged by 21 funders.
Businesses

Submission + - Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands - Starting With Mine (readwrite.com)

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "Tech billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he is fed up with Facebook and will take his business elsewhere. He's sick of getting hit with huge fees to send messages to his team's fans and followers.

Two weeks ago Cuban tweeted out a screen grab of an offer he'd received from Facebook. The social network wanted to charge him $3,000 to reach 1 million people. Along with the screen grab, Cuban wrote, "FB is blowing it? This is the first step. The Mavs are considering moving to Tumblr or to new MySpace as primary site.""
Crime

Submission + - In Mississippi: 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Copyright Infringement (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by patella.whack
patella.whack writes: A guilty plea for six counts of selling counterfeit media gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi. An undercover reporter from the Attorney General’s Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the defendant who had 10,500 pirated discs at home and 2 prior convictions: one for assaulting a police officer 17 years ago and one for CD piracy that got him a year under house arrest.

          Says the RIAA: "[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others."

          Frequently serial criminals? 15 years? I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors...
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Staff emails are not owned by firms, UK judge rules (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: A high court judge has ruled that companies do not have a general claim of ownership of the content contained in staff emails.

The decision creates a potential legal minefield for the terms of staff contracts and an administrative nightmare for IT teams running email servers, back up and storage.

The judge ruled businesses do not have an "enforceable proprietary claim" to staff email content unless that content can be considered to be confidential information belonging to a business, unless business copyright applies to the content, or unless the business has a contractual right of ownership over the content.

Ruling in the case involving Fairstar Heavy Transport and its former chief executive, Justice Edwards-Stewart said: "I can find no practical basis for holding that there should be property in the content of an email, even if I thought that it was otherwise open to me to do so.

"To the extent that people require protection against the misuse of information contained in emails, in my judgment satisfactory protection is provided under English law either by the equitable jurisdiction to which I have referred in relation to confidential information (or by contract, where there is one) or, where applicable, the law of copyright.

"There are no compelling practical reasons that support the existence of a proprietary right — indeed, practical considerations militate against it."

Justice Edwards-Stuart added it was "quite impractical and unrealistic" to determine that ownership of the content of emails either belongs exclusively to the creator or the recipient of an email.

Slashdot Top Deals

If all else fails, lower your standards.

Close